Turning street lights off at night does not lead to more traffic accidents, researchers have said.

Motoring and pedestrian groups have raised concerns about councils switching off their lights at night to save money, with research suggesting around a third are being turned off.

But research published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health based on 14 years of data from 62 local authorities across England and Wales found there was no evidence of an association between reduced street lighting and increased crime or traffic accidents.

Wirral has put the lights out on several routes in order to save cash.

At present, 22 of the borough's roads have alternate lights switched off.

Fifteen of these are industrial access roads, the other seven are non-residential links and bypasses.

Six pedestrian routes have lights switched off entirely.

And the pedestrian route - Ian Fraser Walk at New Brighton - has alternate lights off.

A £4.3m installation of low-energy LED lamps replacing 7,000 of Wirral's most inefficient street lights is beginning at the end of August.

AA president Edmund King said he was "extremely surprised" by the results.

"Our own analysis of inquest findings uncovered six road deaths from 2009 to 2013 where coroners said the switching off of street lights had been a contributory factor," he said.

"Police crash investigators said the drivers had little or no chance of avoiding the collisions.

"At the same time, Department for Transport statistics show that significant reductions in night-time accidents along roads with lighting have been stunted on unlit town and city streets."

But Mr King said evidence from several inquests into road deaths contradicted the findings.

"An inquest this May confirmed that a council decision to switch off street lights contributed to the death of a Wiltshire woman in September 2014," he said.

"The outcome of an inquest into an Essex man killed in December while walking home from a Christmas party is also awaited. Another man had been knocked over just 40 minutes earlier on the same road - police then demanded that street lighting along that route be turned back on.

"An inquest into the deaths of two men on a blacked-out section of the M65 will involve the coroner asking road authorities why his warnings, after a previous crash related to the switching off of road lighting, was ignored."

He said the AA advised its members to drive using their full beams on roads where street lights have been switched off, except where they might dazzle other road users.

"Drivers cannot afford the risk of not lighting the road ahead if it might result in killing or injuring pedestrians, cyclists and other vulnerable people," he added.